Marie-Christine Meyer (Leibniz-ZAS Berlin)

Towards a compositional semantics for L+H*LH%


In this talk I will work towards a compositional semantics of complex intonational structures involving a contrastive pitch accent L+H* and a final fall or rise (LL% or LH%). I will show how the semantic composition of L+H* with LX% offers a unifying new perspective on constructions traditionally described as “meta-linguistic negation”, "contrastive negation” and “contrastive focus”.